Peanuts in my face

The trains is speeding ahead, my hair is blowing up, down, sideway and all over my face, the scarf is not helping. Windows are wide open and have holes the size of water bottle. Peanut scrubs are flying in my face as the guy in front of me is continusly trowing peeled pieces out the window, the wind brings them right back in my face. Two kids behind who are seating in one seat are kicking the back of my seat and the guy next to me is staring at everything I am doing. No privacy, no comfort and 5 more hours. How did I find my self here? Oh yeah I am a backpacker so I didn’t pay for first class but the general class. I saved $5, got the local treatment and peanuts in my face.

Good thing for the hash lollipop. It was a gift from friends back home, they got me a hash flavored lollipop. This is a perfect time to try it. Please work.

The train is passing through serious poverty, almost unimaginable how some people are living. I can’t even describe it and too jaw dropping to take a picture. How is it possible that such spiritual place is so condensed with dirt, shit and imperfections? How is it possible that there are millions of gods in Hindu religion yet such poverty exists?

Gaurav, Bogusia’s husband told me how he and his friends always joked that, God must exist in India if there is such poverty, millions of people and no one works by choice. Sure seems that way, as there is a good number of people just hanging around doing nothing, and almost impossible to get reliable workers to help.

But whatever floats their boat, this is India and that’s just how things work, and if you want to be here you just got to get with the fact that sometimes there will be peanuts flying in your face along with kicks in the back and no privacy. The important thing here? There is spirit, and spirituality and that’s why we come here.

So I find myself on this train, as always a train ride is a perfect time to dream, think and take off to a different world. I have tears. I don’t know why, I am emotional, very mixed feelings. I am not happy, I am not sad I just feel like crying, abrupt sadness took over me, perhaps is the poverty, perhaps is recent actions that I left behind. Or perhaps is the fact that I realize I am alone, and no hand to hold.

In the past few years I was never alone, I always had an extra pair of soles, and extra pair of ears listening to my wow’s. Even after coming back home, I was never alone. But here I am, all alone on this train and on my road. I am thankful as a woman for the freedom to choose to be alone. We are born alone and we die alone, and often we are faced with things alone.

Wow, hash lollipop.

The train has arrived.

A bus ride, a riksha ride and I arrived. I arrived in front of Ram Jhula suspension bridge, it’s 9pm, it’s dark and no one I see. Cool breeze lifts my hair as I walk over sacred Ganga, with a backpack on my back I slightly wobble to the each side. Half way on the bridge, I smile. A feeling of comfort has arrived. I feel I am almost there, I no longer feel alone. Over the bridge and by the sleeping cows, I pass homeless and motorbikes pass me by. I hurry quickly in the darkness, and I finally reached the Green. Green View hotel is where Iza and I stayed back then. With exhaustion I fall asleep.

The drip of heavy rain water wakes me up, gray mornings light sneaks in by. It’s cold, I slowly move my way out and I uncover my heavy blanket to the side. I slide the curtain to the right and after all I am not alone.

I scratched my face and something fell down my, I pick it up and
“Huh, I still got peanuts stuck on my face”.

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